Kitchen's Ink

I came by making this report completely by accident. I had no intention of it becoming what it has, I think. It isn’t just a report. It is a blueprint, an easy one, for using ChatGPT (or another AI of your choosing) to assist in breaking through the full hubris of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and breaking down into simple terms why damn every idea it presents is white nationalistic trash draped in a velvety “conservative American” cape.

In any case, how I got here.

This is personal for me. I’m from Oskaloosa, Kansas, a small county seat community of 1,100 or so depending on the year. I haven’t been back more than perhaps one time since my father died in 2013, and it was only a handful of times in the decade prior to that. But, as childhoods shape us, I grew up on the dirt roads and main square brick streets that were separated by only a few blocks.

Summer nights at the annual Old Settlers Reunions. Going fishing in area ponds. Working in the now-gone Gambino’s Pizza. Playing sports as a proud Oskaloosa Bear. All while growing up, Kindergarten through 12th grade, as a product of the Oskaloosa Elementary, Middle School, and High School system.

My small-town school will always “belong” to me, and, even more so, to all of those good folks who walked those halls.

Schools ARE the community in so many ways.

So, with my undying loyalty to that belief, I also believe in scenarios and gaming them out. So, I did exactly that with regard to Kansas schools – rural ones, specifically – to see what dissolving the Department of Education could mean for them as Project 2025 unfolds through Donald Trump’s second term.

Here’s what came back (free to download).

It’s as it terrifying as it is sad because, well, many Kansas voters said they wanted this. (They were duped into thinking this is a good thing for them, of course, because that’s what too many politicians do.) I’ve made it a personal goal to control what I can control and contribute what I can contribute by trying to be as bluntly clear about how education (and healthcare for Kansas and EVERYONE!) is going to suffer in Kansas if/as the Trump administration continues down this path.